My guest today is Whitney Hansen.
Whitney Hansen is a Millennial financial coach. After paying off $30,000 in 10 months, hacking her way to a $472 MBA, and buying her first home at 19, Whitney discovered her love for helping Millennials take control of their financial life. The recognition and acknowledgment of generational wealth gaps (that exist largely due to student debt) have been the driving force for why and how Whitney has created her Millennial coaching program.
In addition to being a financial coach, Whitney is also a dynamic speaker and the host of an award-winning podcast, The Money Nerds. She has been featured on GoBanking Rates, CNBC, ESPN, Yahoo! Finance, Ally, and local news channels.
In this conversation, we discuss why it’s important for financial advisors to embrace digital marketing in order to reach a younger audience. Don’t miss one of our favorite moments, when Whitney shares that it’s ok to be honest: “I don’t know everything”. This kind of authenticity can help your clients connect and trust you more.
Whitney also shares why she sets her coaching clients up with a 3-month success plan. In her experience, that kind of empowerment helps clients build the confidence they need.
As you think about this conversation, which “getting started” tips stand out to you the most? How do you deliver support and intrigue to your Generation Z and Millennial clients? Where are you connecting with your audience? And how are you creating an authentic and “real” brand experience that inspires clients to reach out, without being ashamed of their imperfections?
Looking for more ideas about growing your practice? Join the Model FA Facebook Community, where you will find expert advice on how to launch, grow, scale, and transform your firm with an incredible client experience. Or, check out our Model FA Accelerator, a premier coaching and practice management program for entrepreneurial financial advisors.
Resource Links
Whitney Hansen
The Money Nerds Podcast
Connect with Whitney
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Whitney:
I think podcasting is a great opportunity. I think more than anything, it depends on your personality type. Where do you really shine? If you are going to be super uncomfortable and look like a crazy person doing video, that's probably not going to be your platform. If you are good on the microphone and you have interesting, unique thoughts that contribute value, I think podcasting is a phenomenal way to go. And so I think it's depending more on your personality type of which method I would suggest. But I'd say as we grow in the future, audio and video are must haves.
Patrick:
Welcome to the model FAA. This is Patrick Brewer. I am your host. Today's guest is Whitney Hansen. Whitney is a millennial money coach and she also helps, uh, financial coaches and financial advisors figure out digital marketing and how to grow their practices in today's confusing environment. So Whitney, thank you so much for coming on the show,
Whitney:
Patrick. It is truly an honor. Thank you so much for having me.
Patrick:
Absolutely. I'm excited for our discussion. We can cover a number of different angles here, but I think first we get started with your story. I think you have kind of a unique, uh, entry point into, let's call it financial services, financial coaching. So I think it would be just great to learn a little bit more about you and kind of where you came from.
Whitney:
Yeah, yeah. Happy to share. So my journey to personal finance really began seriously when I was 16 years old, which sounds kinda weird, but I was watching my mom stay in this really abusive relationship. She was married to my dad for 27 years and it was a terrible relationship. She had six kids and she was a stay at home mom. And I remember watching and thinking, why the heck is she staying in this marriage for so long if it's that terrible. And she did eventually divorce and became a single mom was six mouths to feed, which is crazy to think about. And yeah, isn't that wild? There's six of me too. And so one of the weird things that we were having conversations when, when I was a little bit older in my teen years, and I remember asking her, mom, why did you stay in this relationship?
Whitney:
Like what, what kept you there? And of course there's love, there's different abusive tendencies and of, of course like there's a lot more than just this answer. But she said a lot of it was because of money. She just didn't have the funds to leave the situation. And that's when I had my real aha moment of, Oh my God, money matters that you can either struggle with money and be stuck in really terrible life situations or you can start to get control over it and change your entire life. And so at 16 years old, that's when my journey began into personal finances, started reading books. I started with David Bach, the automatic millionaire, and saw all the compound interest stuff and was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. And so I went over to a college of Boise state university and I studied accounting. That was my, my whole degree. And so my journey to my own personal life began in 2010 when I graduated with $30,000 of student debt. And that's, yeah, that's when stuff got real, my friend. Yep. That's where it all came from.
Patrick:
So when you graduated with 30,000 of student debt and with an accounting degree, did you immediately jump into becoming a financial coach or did you start to kind of try and solve your problems around money? I mean, what, what happened post college with saddled with debt?
Whitney:
Yeah, that's such a good question because at that time in 2010 financial coaching was not even a thing. I think even life coaching was still up and coming. We were familiar with that terminology. But at that time, if I wanted to help people, my option was I can either go work in financial services and become an advisor or I can go into wealth management and assist it. Like there were, there were so many different options, but being a coach didn't even occur to me. Like I didn't even think that was a thing. So what really sparked my interest in coaching was when I was paying off my own debt. So I created this weird plan. It was a budget, it was super weird, you know, and nobody does budgets anymore. And sat there and put together this entire plan of like, here's how I'm going to pay off my debt as quickly as possible.
Whitney:
Here's how much interest it's going to save me. And here's the cashflow I gained from having that monthly payment back in my pocket. And so I worked two jobs. I worked as a nail technician and a an accountant. I was doing taxes and external auditing and between the two jobs, I paid off that $30,000 in 10 months. I solely did that for me because I felt how heavy that debt felt. But the crazy thing is that's when people were saying, Hey, help me. I don't know how to create a budget. I don't know how to put together a plan to pay off my debt. I'm really struggling. How do I do this stuff? And I would sit with people in Starbucks and just create budgets with them and just teach them how to plan for their cashflow. Super basic stuff. But I realized that that's what people needed the help with. And so that's where the business kind of started was once I started to see that I don't have to necessarily be an advisor to help people. Sometimes it's the really rudimentary stuff that they need the most help with.
Patrick:
Interesting. So when, what year did that start? Like when did you start financial coaching officially or unofficially, maybe part time. Like what was the,
Whitney:
yeah, unofficially 2012 and then officially I launched my business, which was at that time a YouTube channel and a blog in 2014.
Patrick:
So you were a pretty early mover then to financial coaching in general. Good stuff. What, so we've seen, uh, you know, we can go in a number of different directions from here. I mean we've got a lot of financial advisors who I think are ill equipped to handle coaching, let's say gen Y, gen Z, even gen X around their money issues and kind of how to best allocate, you know, their income and their capital. And then we've also got the issue of, uh, we're not really an issue, but just a lot of financial advisors that are also a little bit younger in their thirties, early forties that are starting to work with this demographic and they're registered, right? They're financial advisors, they're wealth managers, so they're constrained from what they can do from a compliance standpoint. They've got a lot of expenses that they need to, to shoulder with their business. I mean, what is your thought? Why did you decide to go the financial coach route instead of becoming a financial advisor or a wealth manager solely because of the regulation?
Whitney:
I saw how much stuff people had to navigate. Just like even in logos, you can even have the arrow in your logo. Like there's so many little things that when I was looking at that, I just did not want to deal with that. And most of the, the work that I wanted to do was not telling people, Hey, go invest in this mutual or this index fund. That wasn't the work I wanted to do. I wanted to be a little bit more surface level with the budgeting, with the paying off debt side, hustling, that kind of stuff. And so that was a huge reason why I chose not to go that route was just all of the regulation.
Whitney:
It's so hard to be able to say anything as a financial advisor. It was just really difficult and I didn't want to deal with that. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean I preached that too. I just think it makes all the sense in the world. If you're not really going to be, you know, let's say tying your value proposition to investments and making those decisions, like why would you be regulated by the state or by the sec. It makes a lot more sense to just operate in an unregulated environment. So what, what has worked well for you kind of growing your practice? It sounds like it started as a side hustle and then progress to an actual business. I know that you have a podcast, a blog, you do a lot of digital marketing. Can you talk me through the growth kind of trajectory of the business, like where it was that when you started, where it's at now?
Whitney:
Kind of how it's grown over the years? Yeah. When I first got started, it was in person workshops and so it was just teaching people here in my local community about money and it, it naturally evolved into webinars and online courses and so I did that for a couple of years and the whole time I was fighting the one on one coaching. I just did not want to do that. For some reason I was always told, make sure you can scale your time in some way. And so I really fought that one on one piece because I just, I wanted to scale my time and it was really interesting once I started to lean into listening to what people actually wanted, which was the one on one coaching my business more than doubled that first year that I actually started doing the coaching. And so I still have courses today, but my whole business model is surrounding education in some component.
Whitney:
And so that's where the podcast came from was I realized that millennials have very different struggles. Most of them have ridiculous amounts of student debt and it really burdens them. And so they can't necessarily invest in a coach. And because of that, I started the podcast, I started some free courses just to try to help them so that when they are ready, if they feel like they're ready, they have the money that they could invest in a coach to level up their life or an advisor to help them get their finances in order from an investing standpoint. But that's where my business really began was with webinars and courses and then led into coaching and then podcast. It was a natural fit as well. I love it. Yeah. The challenge with courses, and you may have seen this, we've definitely seen it in our businesses.
Patrick:
People just don't go through courses like they have the best intent to go through the course to completion, but they start and then they get busy and they never really get the value for what they paid for. So I think making the move from webinars and courses over to one on one coaching makes all the sense in the world. Just from an accountability standpoint for probably a lot of the people that you're working with, how many people are you working with right now in a one-on-one capacity?
Whitney:
I cap it at 30 people per month. That's about my max. Yeah.
Patrick:
Okay. Yeah. Are they ongoing or are they, what kind of like one time or like let's say 90 day engagements, like how, how have you structured your offer?
Whitney:
Yeah, that's such a great question. It really depends on the person. My whole goal as a coach is to get people to the point where they don't need a coach within three months that they feel equipped and confident to handle this on their own. Now sometimes that works and sometimes there's other clients that need a little bit more handholding over the years. And so most I would say about 60% feel pretty comfortable and then the remaining 40% sometimes that's another three month engagement. And to give you some context here, Patrick, my coaching is meeting weekly. It's a lot. So we meet once a month for an hour and then 15 minute check in calls to make sure they're sticking to their plan. But majority of that 40% a lot of those ones will continue on at a reduced rate. Maybe we only talked twice a month and that's pretty normal just to kind of keep them on track. But yeah, majority are. They're good to go after three months.
Patrick:
Yeah, it's pretty great. So you have more of like an immersive model where you just kind of talk to them every week and help establish the habits that are going to allow them to kind of become, let's say financially, well instead of, you know, having to keep coming back and saying, Hey, this is messed up. You're just, you're actually educating them on the framework to make better decisions.
Whitney:
Yeah. I want them to feel equipped that they can just go figure out this information on their own or know where to go. So if they have tax issues, obviously I don't cover that. I tell them go talk to a CPA. And so I think it's the empowerment piece of feeling like just because you don't know all the answers and that's okay. You can go figure those out on your own. You don't have to feel trapped. You don't always have to hire professionals. Sometimes it's a quick Google search to figure out what do I actually need to do next? Especially with a lot of the basic financial questions. And so a lot of it is just confidence building.
Patrick:
Yeah. What do you think was, uh, not to get too psychological here, but what do you think was stopping you from launching into financial coaching one-on-one? When you had first started, you had mentioned that you had read some things that said, Hey, you need to leverage your time and do these courses and webinars. Do you think it was solely that or do you think there was an element of you that was just maybe you didn't want to or were afraid or you know, just weren't excited about the, the idea of coaching people one on one? Like, cause I've seen that before. I find that, you know, some people, including myself, you know, like I've created courses and, and other leverage products mostly because I just didn't know if I wanted to do the one on one coaching stuff. So I'd be curious to hear your reasons behind that.
Whitney:
I honestly think a lot of it came down to the impostor syndrome. I didn't feel qualified enough and I still experienced this in my business sometimes where anytime I level up it requires a new me and that makes me force facing some of these things where I'm like, man, I don't know the answer to this. I don't know how to do this. I've got to figure it out. And so I think a lot of it was imposter syndrome. I didn't feel qualified enough and which is crazy. I had plenty of qualifications. I have my masters in business, like I've been doing this work for quite some time, but I never felt like I was going to be good enough. And that I think was a big reason why I didn't dive into it as well was I just never felt good enough.
Patrick:
Yeah. And I think that's, I think a lot of us go through that, especially in the financial services industry cause it's such a hard business. It's not an easy business because it requires you to, I don't know, get involved in people's lives very intimately. Have you found that sharing your story about kind of where you came from and your background and just being vulnerable about that, is that helped you establish trust with perspective coaching clients?
Whitney:
1000% I think for most of the people that work with me, the reason that they work with me is because they got to know me through the podcast. They joined a Facebook group. It's rarely like they've been kind of lingering in the background for quite some time for a lot of these people and getting to know me and feeling comfortable enough to reach out because it takes so much courage to reach out and say, I'm a mess. Here's my financial situation. I can barely pay my bills sometimes. I don't know where my money's going. That takes a lot of courage. There's a lot of shame around money and so by me being myself and being vulnerable and approachable, and you'll find that in my branding, I try to be very casual. That's very intentional. It's so that people feel comfortable talking to me about money because it's scary for them. And so that was all completely based off of my story and sharing as much realness and that rottenness as I could to help people feel comfortable to reach out.
Patrick:
Do you think that the financial services industry, specifically financial advisors and wealth managers are doing a good job with that right now based on your kind of bird's eye view and how you've interacted with that side of it? Or do you think they're doing a good job of being intimate and real and communicating like a human
Whitney:
man? I wish I could say yes. I think there's examples of people that are doing a great job. I know you interviewed Brittany Castro, I think she's a phenomenal example of that, but for most advisors, and maybe that's their demographic, is they're targeting a different, maybe they're targeting boomers and they have to show up a different way. But no, I don't think they're doing a great job of being personal and relatable and just sharing, you know, I don't have all the answers because nobody does. And it's okay to admit that sometimes I think it actually builds trust in your clients if you tell them, you know, I don't know this specifically instead of just making up an answer and trying to look like you'd know everything. But I think that there's a whole stigma around financial advisors. They have to know everything. They have to use jargon, they have to use these big terms.
Whitney:
And it's almost a play on confusion sometimes and I don't, I don't like that. I think for a lot of advisors that's not gonna work. You have to be a little bit more relatable, especially for this younger generation. You have to be able to meet them where they are and it's not talking in stuffy terms and it's not always being super polished. It's sometimes just being yourself and being who you truly are and talking in a way that's normal instead of, you know, trying to like Polish up your language. I see that a lot in advising too.
Patrick:
Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. The jargon is a rampant, I would say across the industry. So I'm going to, I'm going to put my advisor hat on and I'm going to argue in the other direction and say, well, you know, what's the, what's the revenue? Like what's the business opportunity for working with millennials? Right? So if, let's say you're bringing these coaching clients on and they're staying for three months and then, you know, we fixed all their issues and now they're kind of walking off into the sunset and they're not paying us any more. Like, is there a reason for us to focus on this segment or are we better off just saying financial coaches have at it, you know, um, you guys, you know, handle that, that segment of the market. Like, do you think there's an opportunity for some type of a continuity model or upselling them into investments and management or is that just not relevant? Like from your experience, is this, is this an actual business opportunity that creates, you know, enterprise value and jobs for people? Or is it more just, you know, we work with 30 to 45 clients a month and produce a good living for ourselves and maybe some contractors and employees, but it doesn't really scale. Like what are your thoughts on that?
Whitney:
I love that question. I think it depends on your specific business model. For me, this is more of a lifestyle business, so my business brings in about $250,000 per year and I'm very happy with that because my overhead is next to nothing. That's, for me it works, but if you're trying to truly build a legitimate business and have employees, no, there's definitely ways that you can scale that up. I think the group coaching model is really interesting. We're seeing a lot with memberships. I think that's a great way to go to where you're helping people. So memberships for an advisor. If I were an advisor, this is one model I would consider, I would have some free workshops, free education to get people in the door to understand, you know, this is me, this is how I teach. Do you like it? Do you not? Just see if that's a good mesh and once they get into the door, then my marketing would be surrounding a membership site, a community, something where they can pay a small nominal fee. Maybe it's $49 per month. Maybe it's $100 just depends on which segment of millennials you'd be targeting and let them get that education and then my upsell would be one on one coaching.
Whitney:
So I think there's a lot of ways that you could scale this business up and make it truly, profitable and life changing for you and other employees. So that's one model that I would look into if I were an advisor.
Patrick:
Yeah, I think that's a great recommendation. I don't, I'm surprised there's not more people doing that right now. One of the things that I've talked about in previous podcasts is just the ability for financial coaches to run testimonials like actually video the clients and the transformation that they've achieved through this process. Have you done any of that in your marketing?
Whitney:
Yeah, I do. I do a lot of video testimonials are really important. Uh, one thing that I haven't done, shame on me that I'm incorporating into my podcast more is bringing my previous clients onto the podcast to share their tips and their story. And so that's something that I haven't been doing, so that's terrible. But one thing that I will be doing more of this year is that, but yeah, it's, it's impactful. I think as a coach you can do that as an advisor, not so much, but it's really a friend. From my coaching perspective.
Patrick:
No, I think that's great. Where, where are most of your leads? Like, so what is the funnel? Is it people listen to the podcast, they join the group, they look for three to six months. Eventually they learn enough about you to where they reach out and schedule a time for one on one coaching. Are you doing a lot of email marketing to get people to schedule calls? Are you booking right to your calendar off the podcast? Like what's the, what's the usual kind of flow as far as how people eventually start paying you money for?
Whitney:
Yeah. Have you heard of the octopus model? (I haven't actually.) Okay. This is kind of weird, but bear with, so if you picture an octopus, you've got the octopus head and then you have all the little tentacles. The tentacles in this case are my different funnels to get them to the head, which is coaching for me. That's where I want them to end up and so the way that they get there is sometimes through the podcast, a lot of times it's from downloading a lead magnet from my website, a resource guide, a checklist, something of that sort, and they would download that and go through a series of email funnels, which ultimately lead them into coaching. Sometimes it's courses. We talked about. Course completion rate being so low. I use that as an opportunity to say, Hey, I know you joined this course. Um, how's it going? Do you need extra help? I find a lot of people need a little bit more hand holding what they want to talk to an actual person if you choose to. I can apply that course rate directly to their coaching. So that's another way too that I, I do structure that. So there's so many different ways that there's not really one, but I'd say that the combination of all of them is what works. But a lot of it used to be from email funnels. Now it's more from the podcast.
Patrick:
How are you managing to do all this? I mean, coaching people one on one, building courses, doing the podcasts, setting up all the tech bits so that everything actually works. Um, that's a lot of stuff. How many, like do you have a lot of full time contractors? Are you even employees? Like what does it, what does your business model look like right now?
Whitney:
Yeah, great question. I would say right now it's mostly me. I have a podcast editor, I have a virtual assistant. And I have a Pinterest manager. Pinterest is really big for my blog. That's how I get a lot of my website traffic and so a lot of this stuff I'm just doing on my own, but to be very fair, I don't do all of this at one time. Courses are done, they're completed, they kind of chill there. I update them periodically so I don't have to do all of these things at one time. I'm a big believer in focus in on one thing, get it moving, get it going, make sure you test it. If it's not working, fix it. So that's what I do. I just focused on one little leg at a time and get it built up.
Patrick:
Love it. What do you think is the biggest market opportunity for advisors? Getting people's attention and actually getting them to become clients. Advisors or financial coaches? I'd say is it doing a podcast? Is it doing a webinar? Is it building a course? I mean, obviously all of these things are additive, right? So you can't just build a course and then not create any emails to promote it. For example, is there one thing that you're seeing in particular that right now that would drive a lot of value for someone who if they were to invest time and energy into it?
Whitney:
Yeah, I mean of course I'm a big fan of podcasts. I know you are too. That's why we're here. So I think podcasting is a great opportunity. I think more than anything, it depends on your personality type. Where do you really shine? If you are going to be super uncomfortable and look like a crazy person doing video, that's probably not going to be your platform. If you are good on the microphone and you have interesting unique thoughts that contribute value, I think podcast June's a phenomenal way to go. And so I think it's depending more on your personality type of which method I would suggest. But I'd say as we grow in the future, audio and video are must haves. I do think you can still start a blog and you can still generate traffic and money that way. I believe that's a possibility for sure. But I think it's a lot easier if you have the audio and video piece.
Patrick:
Agreed. And I think it's primarily because of what we talked about earlier, just this idea of being vulnerable and sharing stories. Really what it comes down to is building intimacy with the person who is either on the other side of the zoom call or listening to the podcast. It's a lot easier I think to do that through video or through audio than it is through the written word. Um, unless you're a very skilled writer, which most financial advisors, including myself, you know, we can put together a business email, but trying to, you know, put together a 2,500 word intimate blog posts. Not the worst, not exactly the best use of time unless you're a gifted writer. So I would agree with you 100% on video and audio. I mean, what, what advice would you give to an advisor or a coach who's struggling with doing video and audio immune? Is there a particular process that you walk through to get comfortable with it? Were you initially scared? Were you just like, Hey, I'm going to do this and you just jump right in. You just jumped right in. What are your thoughts on that?
Whitney:
I was so scared, Patrick, when I first did video, it took me three months. Okay. That might be an exaggeration, but it was pretty close to it. I think it was at least a solid month to post my first YouTube video because I felt like I was like, I look like such an idiot. What is this? And I just felt so awkward. Um, the best way to get comfortable with video, I love this tip. If you go on Facebook, just you can go on Facebook, you can do a live video, but you can set it so only you see that live video.
Whitney:
So if this is like scary and you're like, I don't want to mess up and have everybody looking at me rambling, create a little Facebook group, they're free to create. Go in there. You're the only member in that Facebook group. Go live in that Facebook group. Talk to yourself. Make a list of different topics that you feel comfortable talking on that you think could be helpful and just go live in there. It's the best practice. Nobody sees it and more than anything that gets you comfortable at talking to this little screen, which is so awkward for so many people, but it will force you to be a little bit more comfortable with that. Once you build up your confidence and you do that maybe three times a week for a couple of weeks, then you can start to go live on your personal Facebook page and just teach a topic that you get a lot of questions on. I think that's the important piece and keep it short, maybe 10 minutes or less. Keep it very on point. And that's how I would get started with video and getting comfortable with that today.
Patrick:
I think that's a great tip. I mean, you know, part of it is just getting comfortable on camera and then part of it is figuring out what, what do you want to say? And I think the harder part is honestly just getting comfortable staring at that little red dot. Right. It's just worst. For some reason. I had the same issue when I started my marketing company years ago. My team was, you know, we were all assembled around and everyone's like, Oh, Patrick's going to be great on video. We're not gonna have any issues. And I thought I was going to be fine too. So I sat down on the couch to record what was supposed to be just a quick two minute video that we were going to throw on a landing page for one of our marketing funnels. And it took three hours to do that video. I had to kick everyone out of my house. Face was red. I'm like, good a hair. That's so good. I was so mad. And then we finally got it. It was like a minute and 30 seconds. Um, but it was just one of the most painful experiences of my entire business career.
Whitney:
Yeah. So if you're listening to this and you've started to do video, you're thinking about doing video, just know you will probably walk through that same process of uh, you know, being mentally broken down and then building yourself back up and becoming stronger. So you will, you will get through it. How long did it take you to get comfortable with video? Oh man. I would say when I started doing video I, after that first like three hour session of just pure pain, I was like, okay, wow, this is really going to require like a systematic process for me. Like really I just got to dive in. I've got to immerse myself cause I can't just do it once a month. It needs to be two to three times a week for like similar to your coaching process.
Patrick:
Right? Like I need to carve out a little bit of time just to build the muscle memory and just get into the flow of doing videos. So I would say it took me two to three months of consistent recording to become comfortable. And I started to notice that I had, I developed like this, I don't know, it was almost like a, an alternate person that stepped into the video after awhile. Like I just kind of like, someone even called it out, my creative director called it out. I just kind of like moved my body in a certain way when we were getting ready to record video and then I just stepped into and Ryan, who's our chief operating officer, he calls it video Pat. So I just stepped into video. Pat and I just started to do videos.
Whitney:
Showtime. Right. I mean you do get to that point though. You really do.
Patrick:
Yeah, it's, and it's kind of similar with podcasting. I mean, I don't know if you, it was a little bit easier, I would say to get comfortable with podcasting, but there's definitely a little bit of a learning curve there too, because with video you're talking at the camera. With podcasting, especially if you're the host, you're primarily just ask them questions and doing active listening. So you're kind of engaging different parts of your brain. But
Whitney:
yeah, I think podcast is so good though. It teaches you to be a better conversationalist as a whole. So when you go to these really awkward networking events or conferences, you don't feel so out of place. Like you can turn that switch on and you can start to immediately start communicating with people in a normal real way. I think it's really, podcasting is great. I love it.
Patrick:
That's a really good point. I think. I think it could also help in client meetings too, right? Cause you're practicing. Where do you, you know, you're, you're, you're having to guide the discussion and it's very similar to having a prospect meeting with someone that you don't know. So if you're a financial coach or an advisor and you're like, Oh crap, crap, where do I go next? And podcasting is a great way to throw yourself into the fire and practice that skill to great point. What is your vision at this point? Right? So you've, you've built a lot of marketing funnels that have created an audience. You've, you've driven people through information products into Facebook groups eventually to one on one coaching or you just gonna maintain the business and just kind of operate at that $250,000 level. Do you have aspirations to scale beyond that? Are you trying to, you know, become more of a, let's say a B to B business where you're helping other coaches kind of replicate the model that you built? Like what do you think is kind of next for you?
Whitney:
Yeah, my personal passion is to continue working with individuals at some capacity, a love it, it that might have to be group coaching at some point, but ultimately the same exact model. And then in addition to that, I've been getting a lot of coaches that want to get into this industry don't know where to start. And so what I find for most coaches is it's not a lack of knowledge. You can teach budgeting. Everybody has their different style. Everybody has a different style for paying off debt. Yes, there are some inherent level of like you have to calculate things, but most of us have enough skills to be dangerous. If you're really into personal finance, you probably have some, but the marketing side is terrible. And as a marketer yourself, you probably see that. And so that's one of the areas where helping financial coaches market themselves and create a business that actually works without, you know, spending thousands of dollars going into this training and then not even knowing how to get a client. I hate seeing that. So I think it's tried to get your clients first and get some practice and that's what I'm teaching them now. And then once you need to level up your skills, great. Go get that further education. But try this first before you start to invest a ton of money into educational trainings and certificates. See if even like coaching. And so that's one of the things that's on my heart now is helping people with that next level.
Patrick:
Nice. How many people have you consulted with on the B2B side?
Whitney:
Ooh, I think we're at about 150 so far.
Patrick:
Oh wow. When did you roll that out?
Whitney:
I rolled that out middle of last year, I believe.
Patrick:
So you were getting some demand. How did you promote that to get 150 people? Was it people that you put through your process that were like, wow, this is really cool, like I could see myself doing this? Or was it other people that had just followed your podcast and just what you were doing on the, on the consumer side? Like how did you get some people interested in, yeah,
Whitney:
my own clients now that you mentioned that, it's kind of a bummer. I wish they were into that, but that's not their passion. I guess summer, it's mostly people that have been following and people that have been, I mean you hear the term like funnel hacking where you're watching everybody else's funnels and seeing what they're doing. I think it's more of the people on the outskirts that have been following along because they like me, they like the message, but more than anything they're interested in how do you run your business? I think it's those people that really, that came from,
Patrick:
I'm more, I'm interested in figuring out what's, what's that model where the Baton gets passed between financial coach and financial advisor, right. Where there's, you know, a need for that ongoing kind of planning slash investment management and all the other stuff. Tax planning I think, I don't think anyone's really figured that out yet, but I, I do think that there is a good marrying of interest there if you can figure out how to structure that business model in the right way.
Whitney:
I think so too. I think it's a really important one to talk about because there's so many advisors that are phenomenal with the, the wealth planning and you know, tax optimization and all of these things that coaches legally cannot talk about and shouldn't be diving into. And so finding some type of a model where it's a referral basis makes a ton of sense in my eyes as well. And so I think gets that partnership and that relationship building. So I don't know, maybe that's business number two for you.
Patrick:
Yeah. Well we should chat after this. I'm just hoping I'm able to beat the Northwestern Mutual's of the world to that cause I could just see them launching their own Southeastern mutual coaching and they carve out enough cashflow to get it in the whole life. And then I know not to bash Northwestern mutual. We love you guys. You're great. All the advisors are listening from Northwestern mutual, um, keep doing good work. But uh, I kid. So what advice would you have to, let's say a financial advisor? Um, I'm gonna say specifically a financial advisor who's registered and they've been in business for a of years or they're thinking about becoming an advisor. What advice would you have to them if they want to work with millennials and kind of gen X?
Whitney:
So first and foremost, I would get on Instagram, I would start to, this is where most millennials are kind of hanging out these days. I would hop on Instagram and I would start to search some of the hashtags for financial planners or financial advisors. You can do both and see who's doing a good job there. What are they doing specifically? That's interesting. Are they sharing quotes? Are they sharing tips like what is it that people are resonating with from an engagement standpoint. And from there I would take that and I would apply it to my own business and say, okay, quotes, do well, quick little tips do pretty good too. I think it's, that's where I would start. And then in addition to that, if you're trying to reach a younger generation, a younger audience, get on podcasts, you don't have to start your own. It's a lot of freaking work.
Whitney:
If you don't want to do that, I get it. But you can be a guest on podcasts and share your expertise. And I think that's a really underleveraged way to go for a lot of advisors. And you can pick out specifically like my podcast is called the money nerds. I talk with people. Most of my audience is 25 to 45 years old. It's a really good audience because they're trying to get their financial life together. So that's like another one where you know, you can pitch podcasts people and see can you share your knowledge, can you contribute value in some way? So I think that's where I would begin to reach the younger generations.
Patrick:
Love it. And if you could rewind the clock, let's say five years or so, any advice that you would have given yourself prior to building all the stuff that you built to this point? Anything that you would've done differently?
Whitney:
Man, I wish I would have did one on one coaching so much sooner. I really do. I'd say that was one of my bigger business regrets was not diving into that more. The other piece is I wish I wouldn't have let fear control my decisions as much and fear of looking like an idiot. Fear of looking like I don't know everything. I should have just dove into webinars courses and one on one coaching full heartedly. And if I make mistakes, that's part of the process. But I wish I would have did that a lot more.
Patrick:
Great. Whitney, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really enjoyed our discussion. I think it's going to be very useful for all the advisors and those that are tuning in. So thank you again for making time to come on.
Whitney:
Thank you so much, Patrick. It was really fun getting to know y'all.
Patrick:
Of course. Thanks again.
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